Never's Land
by RubberduckyQuen
Summary: "Please Peter, please don't do this." Never winced and gripped harder on Peter's hand, gasping for air. All her strength, all her magic was going straight to the island, to keep it sustained. He almost hated her for making that her top priority. "I will save you Never, and if that means I need to find the heart of the truest believer, then I will."
1. Chapter 1

From the time Never was born, everyone thought she was strange. Too strange to be seen in public with, despite the fact that no one in her poor, unnamed village had anything to lose. But it was universal to hate anything that was unordinary, or extraordinary, or anything in between that was not solidly, dependently, normal. As much as she tried, Never was not normal. There was no way she could be, for to be normal was to be born into normal circumstances, and having father who disappeared six months after being married to his wife and before she was apparently pregnant was not normal. One would think that after sixteen years, speculation and rumor would fade but she was still the _strange child_. The bolder members of the village, the ones who had earned whatever 'respect' was to be gained by being incrementally nasty, had asked Never's mother if that was why her husband had left, (for it had never crossed their minds to ask first if he had left). It was the answer to both these questions that gave Never her name, the creativity of which did not make her any more normal.

But the thing that made Never the least normal was something the village was completely blind to. If word ever got out, Never would be much more than _strange_.

Never had a silver heart. And no one knew what that meant.

When she was seven, Never had been beaten up by the kids of the woman who was supposed to take care of her while her mother made her delivery trip for the month. That day, Mrs. Fince had dumped Never into the street and had offered nothing but gratitude towards the events that left the child sobbing. The next month, Never went with her mother despite the danger present. She had helped her mother gather the bundles of herbs hung up to dry, and the measure of peridot they had mined from the cave upstream and placed them into the makeshift canvas sack that her mother secured over her back with a single neatly sewn strap before setting down the dirt road, the occasional horse-drawn carriage passing them.

When they reached the wizard's home, he immediately took notice of the small girl. "There's something odd about you."

Never dipped her head, he had heard the stories. "I know, that's what everyone tells me."

The wizard knelt, bringing Never to eyelevel. "You're special." He pressed his hand gently over her chest. "I've never seen anything like your heart." He looked over to her mother, who nodded. The wizard stuck his hand into her chest to pull out Never's silver heart. The wizard looked at it for a moment before placing it back in her chest. Never looked up at him, silently asking questions she'd been asking for years.

The wizard shook his head, "I don't know. I'll have to do some more research. What I do know, is that you are extremely special."

As she and her mother left the house with an empty sack and five gold coins, for the first time she could remember, Never looked back.

Special.

She liked that word.

 **Hey guys! Welcome to my new story Never's Land! Updates will be at least once a week, more likely every other day because I have so many chapters pre-written. Thanks a bunch for checking out my story, I hope you enjoy!**

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	2. Chapter 2

"Never!"

 _No._

Never was not one of those groggy people in the mornings, she knew exactly where she was and she did not want to move.

"Never!"

 _No._ It took visible effort not to sigh and roll her eyes. Was it really so difficult -

"Never come on!"

Never sat up violently, throwing the blankets so forcefully that they landed well past her feet and onto the trunk at the end of it, one of the three pieces of furniture in the room. "What?" She exploded. "Honestly, I stay up all night wrapping up those _cursed_ vials and I don't even get to sleep in after the sun rises?! What in this beautiful blue world needs me to get up this early?!"

"Never, help me!"

Never stormed out of her room, and over the corner to the main room of the Wizard's cottage where he was attempting to hide a couple of very large trunks. Never had seen that face before. She grabbed another and dragged it over to the fireplace where she pulled back the curtain of the fake back and shoved the trunk into the small space in front of the glass vials of who knew what else the wizard had that he wasn't supposed to. Rushing back, she grabbed the last, substantially smaller trunk, and carried it to her bedroom laying it against the blank wall as a loud crash was heard from the large room outside. The door had been broken open. Moving to her small mirror, Never messed up her hair roughly, stepping outside slowly and rubbing her eyes. "F-father? What's going on?" She stepped out around the corner and gasped, throwing her hands to her mouth, in partial shock. There were much more of them than normal. Usually it was only one or two, but now no less than seven or eight of those wretched guards with swords drawn were standing in the main room of the cottage. They're eyes all turned to her as she allowed fear to paint her features in thin, countless droves heavier than heartbeats.

"Maybe this little girl can settle this."

Never swallowed her indignation. She was _sixteen_ for heaven sakes. "Settle what? W-what's going on?"

The guard with the black and grey helmet, made to match the identical leather suits he and everyone else were wearing. "No need to fear, darling." He looked her up and down, she swallowed a violent gag. "You say this is your father?"

She nodded hesitantly, "y-yes," she cleared her throat, "Yes he is."

"Do you happen to know what he was doing last night?"

"What he always does, sleep. His back was hurting him so he went to sleep earlier than I did."

"Did you leave the candles burning when you went to sleep?"

"No, of course not. Why would I?"

"Why were they lit when I came in then?"

"Father must have lit them when he got up."

"Before the crack of dawn?"

"My back has been flaring recently, I lit them so I could make a fire to heat these rags in water." It was the first time the wizard had spoken. Eyes shifted back to Never.

"Is this true?"

"How would I know, I was asleep."

"Search the house."

The black and grey uniforms looked and moved like shadows through the flickering candle light. Never bit back a curse, they did _not_ belong in her bedroom.

"What are they looking for?" She asked the helmeted man, not too much older than she.

"I'm sure you know of his majesty's newest decree, outlawing beasts that are dangerous. Like those mermaids that went missing last month."

 _They're only dangerous because they were cursed by the so called royal wizard!_ "Mermaids?! Missing?! Have you found them yet?"

The guard shook his head. "Last I heard, no. I'm currently looking for a couple of trunks filled with fairies that fought back against his majesty's decree. We're looking for them."

"Oh, well I'll be sure to tell you if I see any."

He smiled at her, "Thank you, it would be extremely appreciated."

"Chief, I found something!"

Never followed to find two guards poised to pull up the lid of the trunk her father had placed in his room. "No!" She shouted. "No don't touch that!"

"And why shouldn't I?"

"That's," Never dipped her head, "That's my mother's."

The helmeted man nodded and the other two backed away from the trunk.

"And where is your mother?"

Never swallowed, forcing slight watering from her eyes. "Gone."

That seemed to be enough, the guards left the room in search for the others. Returning to her father, who was still on his knees being guarded, Never heard the helmeted guard question, "What happened to your wife, the girl's mother?"

"She's gone."

"How?"

"A mob burned down our house in the village several years ago. The girl was still small. We moved out here to get as far away from those people as possible."

Never closed her eyes, resisting images of the fire that was supposed to get rid of the 'freak'. They still believed she was dead along with her mother, and she shuddered to think what would happen if they knew she still lived. She still heard the screams of 'witch' that were so regular after she had been careless enough to try and figure out what exactly her magic during daylight. She had been caught.

"There are a couple trunks in here boss!"

Never was the first to enter her bedroom this time. "Oh, that one's just got my clothes and belongings in it."

"May we open it and see?" this guard must have been completely enthralled with her, no one else had bothered to ask."

"If you wish, but I do not remember what I put on top, it might be rather inappropriate."

The guard flushed and gestured to the other trunk. "What about this one?"

"I don't actually know what's in that one. A young man from the village dropped that off last week, Oliver I believe his name was. He told me not to open it until my birthday next week. If you wouldn't mind, I would like to be the first to open-"

"Come men. We need to go. Other houses to check." His troop marching after him went straight out the door.

Never returned to the main space of the house. "That was rather easier than last time, don't you think?"

"You bet it was," Never took the cup of water the old wizard offered to her.

"That was rather brilliant, the bit about the suitor. Both getting him to not check the trunk and to leave in one stroke."

"Thank you, it had a good test run."

The wooden cups clinked together and they both drank heavily from them.


End file.
